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Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God
At a time when people are yearning for good news, Cynthia Bourgeault's new book invites us to find our way to the hope that does not disappoint or fail. In our usual way of looking at things, hope is tied to “I hope I get this job” or “I hope my mother gets well.” The Bible introduces us to a different kind of hope that has its source not in events but in the mercy of God, a lifeblood of compassion connecting our heart to God's heart and the heart of all creation.
In five interwoven meditations, Mystical Hope shows how to recognize this hope in our own lives, where it comes from, how to deepen it through prayer, and how to carry it into the world as a source of strength and renewal.
Mystical Hope is one of our series of Cowley Cloister smaller format, gift edition books designed for meditative and devotional reading.
In five interwoven meditations, Mystical Hope shows how to recognize this hope in our own lives, where it comes from, how to deepen it through prayer, and how to carry it into the world as a source of strength and renewal.
Mystical Hope is one of our series of Cowley Cloister smaller format, gift edition books designed for meditative and devotional reading.
120 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2001
93 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
Cynthia Bourgeault
55 books357 followersModern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom path.
She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Cynthia has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.
Cynthia is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Women) Contemplative Council and recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute. She is a founding Director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School. She continues to contribute to The Contemplative Society in her role as Principal Teacher and advisor.
Cynthia is the author of eight books: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Wisdom Jesus, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Chanting the Psalms, and Love is Stronger than Death. She has also authored or contributed to numerous articles on the Christian Wisdom path in publications such as Parabola Magazine, Gnosis Magazine, and Sewanee Theological Review.
Cynthia Bourgeault is currently one of the core faculty members at The Living School for Action and Contemplation.
from http://www.contemplative.org/cynthia-...
She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Cynthia has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.
Cynthia is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Women) Contemplative Council and recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute. She is a founding Director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School. She continues to contribute to The Contemplative Society in her role as Principal Teacher and advisor.
Cynthia is the author of eight books: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Wisdom Jesus, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Chanting the Psalms, and Love is Stronger than Death. She has also authored or contributed to numerous articles on the Christian Wisdom path in publications such as Parabola Magazine, Gnosis Magazine, and Sewanee Theological Review.
Cynthia Bourgeault is currently one of the core faculty members at The Living School for Action and Contemplation.
from http://www.contemplative.org/cynthia-...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 20, 2008
Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God (Cowley, 2001) is an inviting, warmhearted, and reflective introduction to Christian mysticism by Cynthia Bourgeault. Reverend Bourgeault is an Episcopal Priest who leads contemplative prayer retreats across the U.S. and Canada. She is a genuine contemporary mystic and minister who is not only deeply immersed in and committed to her Christian tradition and its contemplative practices, but has sincerely and richly studied Sufism (Mystical Islam).
Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God is a short book running only 106 5" x 8" pages, including its beautiful opening epigraph, a poem by St. Symeon. But it is a deep text that holds the potential to intersect into one's contexts of faith and practice with long-lived potency. Her exploration of the meaning of mercy in the Hebrew Bible, English, Latin, Hebrew, and French fruitfully yields a vivid evocation of "mercy" as "a fierce, bonding love," and "the power that binds one person to another in the covenant of hearts" (p. 25)
Bourgeault outlines a vision of "mystical hope" that as "a life of its own" goes deeper than a response to positive outcomes, is found in a space of "presence...an immediate experience of...communion..." and characterized by "an 'unbearable lightness of being' from within." (pp. 9-10) And Bourgeault brings us to its shores in many ways, especially in two evocations of the Voyage of St. Brendan who in sailing to find the Land promised to the Saints, finds it not by navigating in the physical world, but rather, at the moment his "inner eye opens." (p. 18)
Bourgeault's book beautifully balances teaching with illuminatingly illustrative autobiographical anecdotes. One most memorable and helpful is that of her experiences navigating boats in the Maine fog as a metaphor matching and illuminating such mystical motifs as the "Cloud of Unknowing" and the "Dark Night of the Soul." Her refrain, and especially its setting in her fog-navigation anecdote, underscores that contemplative prayer as the practice of hope is to "sit in the presence of God," and maintain "inner availability to God" sounded deeply in my soul.
Bourgeault emphasizes themes and examples from Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and Jacob Boehme. I found her occasional quotes from contemporary Sufi master Kabir Helminski and Thomas Merton's writing on Sufism also appealing. Her quote from Gerald May that the universe runs on the energy of agape (p. 30) deepens her meditation on "the Mercy." Her selection of this passage from Kabir Helminski is inspired: "Whoever makes all cares into one care, the care for simply being present, will be relieved of all care by that Presence, which is the creative power." (p. 12) And Bourgeault integrates ideas and images from the new physics with balance and justice. But the main thrust of her offering here is decidedly and devoutly Christian and when she makes her comparisons, she affirms the distinctive beauty and richness of the Christian revelation -- so much so that I only wish she had extended her descriptions of centering prayer and lectio divinia, sacred contemplative reading. (p. 60) Still, her accounts of meditation give enough detail to motivate many to follow the intimations of how simply (even if not often easily) one might establish this beautifully simple meditation practice of centering prayer.
In a beautiful passage on Gethsemani (Matt 26:52-53), she writes: "When Jesus, the living truth, yielded himself faithfully into the Mercy; when he who was the Mercy dissolved into the Mercy, in that exact moment the Mercy became one with the body of Christ. From then on and ever hereafter the Mercy wears a human face -- and that is the face of Christ." (p. 74)
Her excellent chapter on death, "Dying Before You Die," presents an accessible understanding of apocatastasis ("the final restoration of all things 'at the end of time' "). Bourgeault writes of an experience of her daughter riding a ferry that became for her a vivid personal moment of apocatastasis . Experiencing the scene as a moment in which "it was all present already, all contained in a huge, stately now" led her to see how "all our times are contained in...the Mercy itself." (pp. 63-64). It was her discovery that one can taste of apocatastsis in everyday moments in which "all is fulfilled" when one stands in the Mercy. A train riding image she culls from Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych on the shift Ivan Ilych experiences of accepting his own death is also illuminating.(pp. 68-69)
Another motif that traces through these pages is one Bourgeault calls "the body of hope," (p. 14, et al.) a lesson she learned from a special teacher she had -- and continues to learn from even after death -- a Benedictine monk named Raphael Robin ("Rafe"). Bourgeault's earlier autobiographical account of her journey with Rafe (Love is Stronger than Death) (Lindisfarne Books, 1997) is truly a book that echoes in one's consciousness, a book on a Platonic love and mentoring relationship that continues after the death of one of the two people!
In Mystical Hope Bourgeault is probing -- and maybe even provoking -- us to look in our faith for a hope deeper than one by which one "can fix anything," and instead to find the "ground of hope" (p. 59). This ground of hope rests as she points out in a realm literally "beyond thinking" -- metanoia. I appreciate her evocation and improvisations on Jacob Boehme's term for mercy as "warmheartedness," (Barmherzigkeit) and Merton's term for entering mystical unitive experience, which he described as le point vierge (the virgin point.) In one sense, as a point vierge, Bourgeault's book can be a sweet, warm and fast read; at a deeper level, the "ground of hope" (p. 70) and its evocation of the "protecting nearness" (p. 59), it calls one repeatedly back to reflect on its meditations more deeply and contemplatively.
Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God is a short book running only 106 5" x 8" pages, including its beautiful opening epigraph, a poem by St. Symeon. But it is a deep text that holds the potential to intersect into one's contexts of faith and practice with long-lived potency. Her exploration of the meaning of mercy in the Hebrew Bible, English, Latin, Hebrew, and French fruitfully yields a vivid evocation of "mercy" as "a fierce, bonding love," and "the power that binds one person to another in the covenant of hearts" (p. 25)
Bourgeault outlines a vision of "mystical hope" that as "a life of its own" goes deeper than a response to positive outcomes, is found in a space of "presence...an immediate experience of...communion..." and characterized by "an 'unbearable lightness of being' from within." (pp. 9-10) And Bourgeault brings us to its shores in many ways, especially in two evocations of the Voyage of St. Brendan who in sailing to find the Land promised to the Saints, finds it not by navigating in the physical world, but rather, at the moment his "inner eye opens." (p. 18)
Bourgeault's book beautifully balances teaching with illuminatingly illustrative autobiographical anecdotes. One most memorable and helpful is that of her experiences navigating boats in the Maine fog as a metaphor matching and illuminating such mystical motifs as the "Cloud of Unknowing" and the "Dark Night of the Soul." Her refrain, and especially its setting in her fog-navigation anecdote, underscores that contemplative prayer as the practice of hope is to "sit in the presence of God," and maintain "inner availability to God" sounded deeply in my soul.
Bourgeault emphasizes themes and examples from Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and Jacob Boehme. I found her occasional quotes from contemporary Sufi master Kabir Helminski and Thomas Merton's writing on Sufism also appealing. Her quote from Gerald May that the universe runs on the energy of agape (p. 30) deepens her meditation on "the Mercy." Her selection of this passage from Kabir Helminski is inspired: "Whoever makes all cares into one care, the care for simply being present, will be relieved of all care by that Presence, which is the creative power." (p. 12) And Bourgeault integrates ideas and images from the new physics with balance and justice. But the main thrust of her offering here is decidedly and devoutly Christian and when she makes her comparisons, she affirms the distinctive beauty and richness of the Christian revelation -- so much so that I only wish she had extended her descriptions of centering prayer and lectio divinia, sacred contemplative reading. (p. 60) Still, her accounts of meditation give enough detail to motivate many to follow the intimations of how simply (even if not often easily) one might establish this beautifully simple meditation practice of centering prayer.
In a beautiful passage on Gethsemani (Matt 26:52-53), she writes: "When Jesus, the living truth, yielded himself faithfully into the Mercy; when he who was the Mercy dissolved into the Mercy, in that exact moment the Mercy became one with the body of Christ. From then on and ever hereafter the Mercy wears a human face -- and that is the face of Christ." (p. 74)
Her excellent chapter on death, "Dying Before You Die," presents an accessible understanding of apocatastasis ("the final restoration of all things 'at the end of time' "). Bourgeault writes of an experience of her daughter riding a ferry that became for her a vivid personal moment of apocatastasis . Experiencing the scene as a moment in which "it was all present already, all contained in a huge, stately now" led her to see how "all our times are contained in...the Mercy itself." (pp. 63-64). It was her discovery that one can taste of apocatastsis in everyday moments in which "all is fulfilled" when one stands in the Mercy. A train riding image she culls from Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych on the shift Ivan Ilych experiences of accepting his own death is also illuminating.(pp. 68-69)
Another motif that traces through these pages is one Bourgeault calls "the body of hope," (p. 14, et al.) a lesson she learned from a special teacher she had -- and continues to learn from even after death -- a Benedictine monk named Raphael Robin ("Rafe"). Bourgeault's earlier autobiographical account of her journey with Rafe (Love is Stronger than Death) (Lindisfarne Books, 1997) is truly a book that echoes in one's consciousness, a book on a Platonic love and mentoring relationship that continues after the death of one of the two people!
In Mystical Hope Bourgeault is probing -- and maybe even provoking -- us to look in our faith for a hope deeper than one by which one "can fix anything," and instead to find the "ground of hope" (p. 59). This ground of hope rests as she points out in a realm literally "beyond thinking" -- metanoia. I appreciate her evocation and improvisations on Jacob Boehme's term for mercy as "warmheartedness," (Barmherzigkeit) and Merton's term for entering mystical unitive experience, which he described as le point vierge (the virgin point.) In one sense, as a point vierge, Bourgeault's book can be a sweet, warm and fast read; at a deeper level, the "ground of hope" (p. 70) and its evocation of the "protecting nearness" (p. 59), it calls one repeatedly back to reflect on its meditations more deeply and contemplatively.
October 7, 2016
This is fine.
Before I start, I have to point out that this book is about a lovely subject & is easy to read. I think it would be of great use to anyone who has been turned off by the idea that Christianity is regimented & rule driven & not founded in the love God has for us in Christ.
Having said that, there are a few reasons I would likely not read it again, hence the 3 stars. The second chapter, for me, is wholly unpalatable. I take tremendous issue with the desire of some Christian thinkers to make quantum physics be about God (when God is about everything, & simple analogies in nature will do). Those who speak of God as though God is expressed in physics always strike me as understanding neither. It also serves to alienate persons who have real need for visceral connection to Christ. Now they have to go look up terminology, & they will find that it doesn't quite fit.
The author also brings up another of my issues with this book, though she then forgets it, which I do not fault her for in the least. It is kind of airy-fairy. She notes that a friend of hers dismisses Christian meditation as white middle class navel gazing while simultaneously talking about boating in Maine & traveling to monasteries for retreats. There is nothing wrong with either of these activities, but some of the people in the deepest pain, who lack anything like a connection to God because they are working two jobs or raising kids on food stamps are NOT going to find quiet time to go inside to the point vierge.
An associate of the Benedictines recently spoke at my parish, & he said it is perfectly possible to meditate while making your kid a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I wish the author had said the same.
This book was assigned to me for a class, so I admit it's not one I would normally choose for myself. People who come to it willingly will probably find it lovely. It had some moments.
Before I start, I have to point out that this book is about a lovely subject & is easy to read. I think it would be of great use to anyone who has been turned off by the idea that Christianity is regimented & rule driven & not founded in the love God has for us in Christ.
Having said that, there are a few reasons I would likely not read it again, hence the 3 stars. The second chapter, for me, is wholly unpalatable. I take tremendous issue with the desire of some Christian thinkers to make quantum physics be about God (when God is about everything, & simple analogies in nature will do). Those who speak of God as though God is expressed in physics always strike me as understanding neither. It also serves to alienate persons who have real need for visceral connection to Christ. Now they have to go look up terminology, & they will find that it doesn't quite fit.
The author also brings up another of my issues with this book, though she then forgets it, which I do not fault her for in the least. It is kind of airy-fairy. She notes that a friend of hers dismisses Christian meditation as white middle class navel gazing while simultaneously talking about boating in Maine & traveling to monasteries for retreats. There is nothing wrong with either of these activities, but some of the people in the deepest pain, who lack anything like a connection to God because they are working two jobs or raising kids on food stamps are NOT going to find quiet time to go inside to the point vierge.
An associate of the Benedictines recently spoke at my parish, & he said it is perfectly possible to meditate while making your kid a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I wish the author had said the same.
This book was assigned to me for a class, so I admit it's not one I would normally choose for myself. People who come to it willingly will probably find it lovely. It had some moments.
August 24, 2023
Uplifting and deeply contemplative. I have a lot to ponder with this one. I do find a merging of some of my more “unique” beliefs and Christianity. I like it!
August 9, 2022
In this little book mystic writer, Cynthia Bourgeault outlines her view of hope, which she calls mystical hope. She describes hope not as something tied to the future but rather having to do with the presence of God in a deeply intimate personal experience. This presence draws one to the flow of God's Spirit in our lives that brings us in a deeper appreciation of God's presence in the world.
I was drawn to this book because of the word "hope,' but I found her explanation as very disconnected from life as it is lived day to day. I am not a mystic, I don't find ultimate meaning within but in the midst of seeking to fight for justice in the world, and so I found this book frustrating and confusing
I was drawn to this book because of the word "hope,' but I found her explanation as very disconnected from life as it is lived day to day. I am not a mystic, I don't find ultimate meaning within but in the midst of seeking to fight for justice in the world, and so I found this book frustrating and confusing
June 5, 2023
My spiritual director on retreat suggested I might benefit from reading some of Bourgeault’s work. She specifically recommended The Wisdom of Jesus, but Mystical Hope was the one available in the retreat library. I read this slim book in a day and hope to reread it.
Like Primary Speech, this book put into words things I’ve experienced but don’t have the words for. Images I’ve received in prayer now make more sense to me. I particularly resonated with the idea that our intentions or emotions must match our actions for those actions to have their intended impact.
I long to lean into and find more connection to mystical hope in my daily life. FWIW, While some reviewers have criticized this book as not being practical, I think there are many ways to live and pray into mystical hope no matter our life circumstances.
Like Primary Speech, this book put into words things I’ve experienced but don’t have the words for. Images I’ve received in prayer now make more sense to me. I particularly resonated with the idea that our intentions or emotions must match our actions for those actions to have their intended impact.
I long to lean into and find more connection to mystical hope in my daily life. FWIW, While some reviewers have criticized this book as not being practical, I think there are many ways to live and pray into mystical hope no matter our life circumstances.
May 2, 2023
This short book packs a punch. I probably only comprehended a small potion and will go back to it multiple times.
Mystical hope is easy yet complicated - requires an incredible lightness of being, is not tied to a good outcome to the future in terms of external circumstances and conditions. It has something to do with presence and it bears fruit within.
We miss the hand of God because of our rushing ahead into the future.
The source of hope lies deep within us and flows to us with an unstinting abundance.
“The point vierge is the last irreducible secret center of the heart where God alone penetrates.”
“Mediation more than any other spiritual practice, nurtures the latent capacities within us that can perceive and respond to divine hope.”
Mystical hope is easy yet complicated - requires an incredible lightness of being, is not tied to a good outcome to the future in terms of external circumstances and conditions. It has something to do with presence and it bears fruit within.
We miss the hand of God because of our rushing ahead into the future.
The source of hope lies deep within us and flows to us with an unstinting abundance.
“The point vierge is the last irreducible secret center of the heart where God alone penetrates.”
“Mediation more than any other spiritual practice, nurtures the latent capacities within us that can perceive and respond to divine hope.”
March 24, 2025
“If I come preaching the gospel of Christian love but am myself rigid and judgmental, I am putting into the atmosphere rigidity and judgement. … A right action done with wrong energy will ultimately become a wrong action.” Pg 91-92
If you can just turn off your over-reliance on ordinary thinking, “you will know, in a way you cannot presently know, your absolute belonging and place in the heart of God, and that you are a part of this heart forever and cannot possibly fall out of it, no matter what may happen.” Pg 52
Just a couple of the gems in this excellent book, published in 2001, but so needed today.
If you can just turn off your over-reliance on ordinary thinking, “you will know, in a way you cannot presently know, your absolute belonging and place in the heart of God, and that you are a part of this heart forever and cannot possibly fall out of it, no matter what may happen.” Pg 52
Just a couple of the gems in this excellent book, published in 2001, but so needed today.
July 24, 2022
I enjoyed and appreciated this book despite coming into it with a dose of skepticism. My initial concern of a book that would seem overly ethereal with a title such as "Mystical Hope" seemed to be supported early on. However, as the chapters progressed, Bourgeault lured me in for this inward journey. I am less skeptical than I was, and I realize this is a book that might need numerous readings to plumb the depths of the wisdom it is trying to share as we seek "the Mercy".
July 14, 2021
First published 2001. Good introduction to Cynthia Bourgeault, who can be difficult to understand. Gave me a better feeling about the word mercy. For this author, it means, not that one deserves punishment but God will forgo it this time. It means God's love and acceptance are unconditional, as if God loves us no matter what we do.
June 17, 2025
I read this book while on pilgrimage in Canterbury, UK and at Waverly Abbey in Sussex. It was a wonderful companion to my spiritual journey. Very deep and meaningful, to be absorbed slowly and meditatively. My plan is to suggest it to my book club so that I can read it again and discuss with a group.
October 18, 2018
Wonderful
Have been following Cynthia for some time thru CAC. She takes words to places words rarely dare to go. Gaudete et exsultate.
Have been following Cynthia for some time thru CAC. She takes words to places words rarely dare to go. Gaudete et exsultate.
December 11, 2018
Loved it! Perfect read at this point in history.
August 12, 2019
This book was a very good read about contemplative prayer.
Read
April 5, 2020Doesn't really lend itself to a review, so I won't do one.
July 28, 2020
I have had this one for a while finding it in a used bookstore. As I grieved a dear friend’s sudden death, I picked it up. It was perfect because it addressed grief and the hope we do have regardless of life situations.
August 27, 2020
Short, sweet, accessible.
December 16, 2020
Beautiful.
February 19, 2021
Absolutely great. A must read for those following the Wisdom Tradition.
April 29, 2024
Mystical Hope
She shows one how to have the power, wisdom, and perserverance
to tap into that Eternal Energy within and influence the world without.
She shows one how to have the power, wisdom, and perserverance
to tap into that Eternal Energy within and influence the world without.
July 25, 2021
Intellectual read. Deep concepts. It gave me a lot to think about and reflect upon. It is a hopeful book.
October 6, 2017
I love this book. When I told Nate about it, he said Cynthia Bourgeault, herself, handed him a copy when he was in college and he loves it too! Bourgeault is an engaging, personal writer who manages to turn her sometimes esoteric knowledge into practical approaches for getting to know God (and be known!). In Christ, in righteousness, in The Mercy, in the flow of hope that leads to that vierge point --- as Merton describes: "at the center of our being a a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God... which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will"-- that's where this book is encouraging us to stay and so act in hope in a troubled world. So this is a great Circle of HOPE book. There is a LOT here in just 100 pages. I read a chapter a day after my morning prayer disciplines to make sure I did not read it too fast, and found myself longing for morning. If you do not "understand" it all right off, and if she quotes people and movements that make you feel suspicious, that's OK. It will do you good to be in hope with her, and that is her main gift in the offering, anyway. -- Rod White
November 1, 2013
This book was fine, just not what I was hoping for (ha). I appreciate Bourgeault's insights and perspective, but coming out of a conversation with college students over the weekend about hope and cynicism, I was looking for a bit more application to how we can be radically hopeful in the face of all of the world's brokenness and how practices like centering prayer can help us cultivate such hope. The brokenness the book addressed was primarily personal and there's certainly a need for that discussion, but I think there's room to extend it to the experiences of those who are generally privileged (racially, physically, economically, etc.) and make a conscious decision not to turn their eyes away from suffering that is not directly their own. For college students and others who feel the weight of the world as they learn more about history and current events, there's a great need for this conversation. Perhaps a sequel?
July 20, 2012
My second Cynthia Bourgeault book, and I loved it. It's not quite as rich as The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, but it's a very different sort of text--briefer and more tightly focused. It has the same ease of language, though, the same sense of lightness and clarity and depth of feeling. C.B. redefines hope as something that has to do with the present rather than the future, something we're surrounded by always, even though we may not be aware of it. She touches on ideas of time, on prayer and meditation, on mercy and hope and the differences (and similarities) between the two. Her work is technically Christian, but it's also so much bigger and less easy to characterize--she moves back and forth between religious traditions, from personal stories to theology, with ease, and it's part of what makes her books surprisingly easy reads, in the best possible sense: they're compelling and graceful as well as profound.
June 19, 2016
This was a strange book. Didn't know how to take Cynthia Bourgeault at first ... the way she talks frightens me, because it sounds so "new age". But much of what this book had to say, I found myself readily agreeing with - until maybe the end, where things became a bit less coherent. The first half of this book, though, I enjoyed quite well. Cynthia seems to put most of my understanding of God's nature? personality? existence? into more adequate words than I seem to possess, haha. This is definitely a Christian book, there are bible verses throughout, as well as references to various "saints", but it is also true to its title - Mystical. All in all, this was a comfort to read; to see that my idea of God and the nature of existence aren't so "unchristian" after all, haha. I'd recommend this for people who feel like there should be more to Hope than just anticipation or excitement for some future benediction. And anyone who's starting to think that "You" isn't.
August 6, 2015
Really enjoyed this book, my 3rd by Cynthia Bourgeault. Especially loved the last section about integrity, it really addressed what I believe to be major stumbling blocks for individuals and the church as a whole. Loved how examples of practices such a centering prayer were shown to have such a purifying effect aligning intent and action.
February 7, 2024
A timely read
Cynthia Bourgeault beautifully names the source and practice of hope. It is found through contemplative practice and the “dying before you die.” Hope is the great mercy, the energy and life source of God, that is within each of us and all things that holds us together.
Cynthia Bourgeault beautifully names the source and practice of hope. It is found through contemplative practice and the “dying before you die.” Hope is the great mercy, the energy and life source of God, that is within each of us and all things that holds us together.
November 7, 2016
It helps if you have mystical tendencies
Well written, challenging reading, but worth the journey. It's not "for beginners" but if you're interested in identifying a Christianity that is real, this could be what you're looking for.
Well written, challenging reading, but worth the journey. It's not "for beginners" but if you're interested in identifying a Christianity that is real, this could be what you're looking for.
October 10, 2020
A spark to discover hope within
I enjoyed reading this title and for what is worth, Christians and non-Christians alike ought to thoroughly read its pages with an open heart and there, right there you’ll discover hope within.
I enjoyed reading this title and for what is worth, Christians and non-Christians alike ought to thoroughly read its pages with an open heart and there, right there you’ll discover hope within.
July 31, 2011
nice little book, tho some of her later books develop her ideas more fullly
October 28, 2013
Great little book. Love this book primarily for all the conversation that it fostered in our class. Inner traditions and practice become the foundation for outward manifestation.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews